Music History
10,000 BC – The Lute is invented. In less than one season douchebags (which oddly is not an anachronistic term in this context; the first crude douche appartuses were actually called "lute players" for their first few hudred years of development) are already known for their playing lutes in public squares and bringing lutes to parties. 5,000 BC – Music is Outlawed by the Assyrian Empire. Penalty is evisceration but not necessarily death, leading some enterprising lute players to use their own dried and spindled intestines as lute strings. 600 BC, Music is Inlawed by Romulus, eventual founder of Rome, moments after killing his brother Remus, presumably while yelling “SLAYER RULES!” 0 AD – Jesus Christ is born; music gets pretty lame for about a millennium. 1100 AD – The Hurdy Gurdy, the coolest instrument of all time, is invented. Its mysteries will never be fully understood. 1400 AD – The Renaissance, Western Europe's only real Golden Age, hits, causing every area of life to improve considerably (some say permanently) for the world's richest white people. This includes the complexity and pleasantness of music. 1492 AD – The conquest of the Americas begins. Despite most Metal influences coming from Norse mythology and Scandinavian anti-Christian sentiments, this era is nonetheless the most Metal thing that has ever happened. Also established soon there after is the Slave Trade, guaranteeing the eventual genesis of Spiritual, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Pop, Rock 'n Roll, Reggae, Hip Hop, and Rap music. Hence the Columbia Record Company Music Club's slogan: “Great Music: Just add 500 years of nightmarish oppression and start recording!” 1800s AD – Music peaks among white populations with Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and the like. The stuff still even sounds pretty good in movie trailers for Christmas movies starring Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 1870 – John Phillip Sousa writes every march song you've ever heard. He invents a new portable (only thirty pound) brass instrument called the Sousaphone. Only one person ever makes the mistake of calling it a small tuba to Sousa's face. 1880 - (No longer called “AD”; God died during the Franco-Prussian War in 1879) – Edison or whoever invents recording on wax cylinders. These are fragile and sound like shit, but the Modern Music Industry is born soon thereafter when a predatory recording deal without any hint of royalties is signed by a talented and unwitting musician. The uncredited former slave uses to proceeds to buy a single day's worth of clean, bright Con Edison electricity. 1920s – Jazz and Blues music hit the mainstream and immediately start losing cultural relevancy. Robert Johnson sells his soul to the Devil, who is incidentally not dead, for guitar skills. The devil leaves his unintelligible singing voice intact, as a joke. Blues musician Leadbelly is pardoned by Mississippi's Governor for a second murder based on his musical abilities alone. 1930s – The Carter Family forces their children into becoming musicians and then collectively writes every country song ever written not about trucks, tractors, or shitty bars. 1940s – Music postponed for World War 2. Radio stations play the same Bing Crosby song 24 hours a day for nearly five years. 1950s – Les Paul of Waukesha, Wisconsin invents the Electric Guitar; presumably spends the remainder of his life swimming in money and engaged in intercourse with models, taking a brief moment to teach Steve Miller, also of Waukesha, Wisconsin, to play guitar. Elvis Presley continues the grand western tradition of cultural appropriation by “inventing” Rock 'n Roll. Some dudes die in a plane crash and nobody would give a shit if a whiny, twenty-minute song hadn't been written about it twenty five years later. Glen Danzig is presumably born at some point. 1960s – The onset of mass psychosis in the form of recreational LSD use alters music in predictable ways. Between March of 1963 and April of 1966, Bob Dylan writes every popular song that has aired on the radio since. A band called The Beatles gets away with an awful pun for a name for no discoverable reason. Johnny Cash makes a deal with the devil to marry into the Carter Family, thus ensuring “American” music's survival for at least another decade, then proceeds to record a series of albums in California's world class prison system. No one in the circle of influence surrounding burgeoning San Francisco rock group 'The Grateful Dead' informs them to "STOP, JUST PLEASE FUCKING STOP". David Bowie begins. 1970s – Arena rock gets a bunch of future dads super stoked about everything after the ending of the Vietnam War and the overwhelming success of the Civil Rights movement leave the world with nothing left to talk about. Perennial underdog and all around good guy Gary Glitter releases his future sports stadium anthem "Rock and Roll (Parts 1& 2)" which climbs to the top of the charts, back when people used that phrase without irony. Phil Spector holds The Ramones hostage at gunpoint in his mansion during the recording sessions for their album "End of the Century" while wearing a shower cap. KISS, the original Insane Clown Posse, but playing rock music instead, release their debut album in 1974, and successfully find several million morons with at least $10 at their disposal to buy their shitty music and go to their stupid shows wearing dumb facepaint. Punk music is born, with birth defects. 1980s – Post punk and new wave are actually pretty cool. Rap is born out of otherwise inexpressible feelings of injustice, but is wet and feeble as a new fawn. Rock n' Roll dies for the most part, or wishes it was dead at any rate. The Replacements fight back briefly and valiantly before later spiraling into sorority girl sing-a-long songs. Neil Young releases that horrendous vocoder synth album but it turns out he did it to try and communicate with his son who has cerebal palsy so don't be a dick about it. The Gories rebuild rock n roll from the 'garage' up in Detroit and you kids don't even care. John Lennon is murdered, sparing us all his eventual decline and decades of hack songwriting with Yoko Ono and their son as his muse, until they leave him because of all the abuse and misogyny, which is when he would have killed himself anyway, selfish monster that he was. 1990s – Punk dies with GG Allin. Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with. Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls are murdered in the midst of an East Coast – West Coast rap beef, supplying VH1 with something to make low budget interview shows about for decades to come and handing a career by association to P.Diddy. Frank Zappa finally dies, mercifully, as does jazz-rock. The Mountain Goats creates a website in 1994 and doesn't ever change its format or update its home page image again. Norwegian black metal musician and white supremacist Varg Vikernes (aka Burzum, aka Count Grishnackh) goes on a church burning spree with his fellow satanic black metal cohorts in the early 90's and later stabs to death fellow bandmate Euronymous of the black metal band Mayhem in 1993. The Squirrel Nut Zippers play President Bill Clinton's second inaugural ball. Kurt Cobain trips and falls onto a suicide attempt, does not survive, and everybody is really bummed out for a super long time over basically one good album (Bleach). The advent of peer2peer filesharing begins the decline of the Modern Music Industry and the rise of the Postmodern Music Industry. 2000s – Dimebag Darrel is murdered on stage, presumably for breaking up Pantera. Modest Mouse receives a Best New Artist Grammy despite having been a band since the early 90's. The Strokes put out their one and only decent rock album in 2001, the world gasps in awe unnecesarily for 10+ years. People no longer get new music from music videos but instead Volkswagen commercials. The greatest punk musician of our era, Jay Reatard, is last seen before his death at age 29 chasing someone around with a chainsaw near his home in rural Memphis, the toxicology report later points to a cocaine overdose but does not mention the chainsaw. The whitemeat bitchass honkys over at NPR finally decide to start covering rap music, watch that shit crackas. Young people confusedly spend their hard earned money on Wilco records without realizing that The Eagles' Greatest Hits is on sale for $5 at their local Wal-mart if they are into that kind of thing. DMX becomes the most important living musician-warrior-poet. 2010s – James Murphy retires LCD Soundsystem. We are left aghast, but fully expect him to return in like ten years, just like every indie band that “breaks up.” They're like comic book characters, really. SpaceGhostPurpp forms hip-hop wizard goth phunk crew PRK in Florida. Vinyl is killing the mp3 industry. The NSA's M.U.S.I.C division compiles a directory of every person who has named "Mumford & Suns, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and Passion Pit" as their 'favorite' bands for a future forced sterilization program led by NSA double agent and eugenics enthusiast Henry Rollins, the public immediately forgives the NSA for all of its previous transgressions. Yeezus. Your dad really 'digs' that new Jack White album. Dubstep flashes as long and as bright as the pan allows. Tweens listen to some chillwave bullshit not worth mentioning.